Free Republic

A California judge refused this week to order a baker to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, ruling that to do otherwise would be to trample on the baker’s free speech rights. Superior Court Judge David R. Lampe said in his Monday ruling that wedding cakes run to the core of the First Amendment. “It is an artistic expression by the person making it that is to be used traditionally as a centerpiece in the celebration of a marriage. There could not be a greater form of expressive conduct,” the judge wrote.

You need the First Amendment precisely when your ideas offend others or flout the majority’s orthodoxies. And then it protects more than your freedom to speak your mind; it guards your freedom not to speak the mind of another. Thus, in classic “compelled speech” rulings, the Supreme Court has protected the right not to be forced to say, do or create anything expressing a message one rejects. Most famously, in West Virginia v. Barnette (1943), it barred a state from denying Jehovah’s Witnesses the right to attend public schools if they refused to salute the flag. In Wooley v. Maynard...

THE Republican Party is really trying to sell us on the rock ’n’ roll theme of this year’s convention... (Cleveland) It is also the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is on point with an exhibit, “Louder Than Words: Rock, Power and Politics,” about the intersection of rock and politics... Max Espinosa, the exhibit’s curator, admitted that the biggest challenge of putting it together was reconciling the fact that many of the featured musicians don’t like the Republican Party’s agenda. “Rock and roll is a lefty medium,” he said... ...a Frank Zappa quote: “Rock music was...

Evangelist Franklin Graham, son of famed preacher Billy Graham, decried a decision by Oregon officials to fine bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein $135,000 for refusing to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, calling it “unbelievable.” “Brad Avakian, Oregon’s Bureau of Labor & Industries Commissioner, upheld the ruling that the Kleins have to pay the lesbian couple $135,000 for a long list of alleged damages including: ‘acute loss of confidence,’ ‘high blood pressure,’ ‘impaired digestion,’ ‘loss of appetite,’ ‘migraine headaches,’ ‘pale and sick at home after work,’ ‘resumption of smoking habit,’ ‘weight gain,’ and ‘worry,’” Graham wrote. “Give me...

Christian owners of a bakery in Gresham, Oregon, who were forced to close their business in 2013 due to backlash over their refusal to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding based on religious objections, were found guilty of discrimination Monday and now have to pay the couple up to $150,000 in fines. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries announced that the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery, Aaron and Melissa Klein, will have to pay the sapphic couple. Whether or not they pay the maximum $150,000 fine will be determined at a hearing on March 10 BOLI...

The Civil Rights Commission of Colorado ruled Friday that baker Jack Philips 1st Amendment rights to free exercise of his religious beliefs may in fact be prohibited. In a decision sure to be challenged, they ruled Philips must participate in same-sex wedding celebrations by ordering him to accept any custom orders wedding cakes from same-sex couples. The Colorado ruling on the pro gay-marriage cake begs the question as to whether or not their definitions of civil rights go both ways (pun intended). Let us consider if the roles in the case were somehow reversed. How would rule if a self-described...